… to protect, enhance and restore the forests and watersheds of the North Bay.

California Forest Statistics

There are 33 million acres of forest(ed) lands in California.

Federal ownership is 19 million acres = 57%

State and local agencies (including land trusts) own 3%

Privately owned forest lands are 13.3 million acres = 40%

Industrial private owners are 4.7 million acres = 14%

Non-industrial privately owned forest lands are 9 million acres = 26%

Non-corporate private forest lands are 7.9 million acres

REITs and other investment devices are 344,000 acres

90+% of the non-corporate private ownerships are 500 acres or less

Four million acres are classified as very highly productive lands capable of producing 165 cu ft of wood product growth per year.

Redwood forests are the highest producing forests (and are a large part of the Four million acres of highly productive forest lands in the State.

Approx. 80% of wood product produced in California comes from private lands

Given the above and that the BoF analysis claimed 1.2 million acres as the max – and – now unlimited ownerships(including those now in NTMPs which is encouraged). With no limitation on the number of ownerships that can be included in a Working Forest Management Plan (WFMP = Timber Harvest up to 15,000 approved in perpetuity with limited future agency review and no future access to the public for review – and – not subject to future rules changes) and no clear estimate on the potential number of such plans the estimate of total forested acres that can potentially be included under the WFMP could range from 2.4 million acres to 4.8 million acres (over time).

Note: It is difficult to arrive at an accurate estimate as the whole process (acreage available and acreage likely to participate) is not addressed in environmental and project review by the Board of Forestry.

Ownerships in NTMPs started out very slowly and are now quickly snowballing. Now, in excess of 340,000 acres. I know of NTMPs with 4 landowners. CalFire has had substantial issues keeping track of the multi-ownership NTMPs.